As directed by French filmmaker Maurice Pialat, "A Nos Amours" is a startlingly honest intimate coming-of-age melodrama with a stunning debut performance from Sandrine Bonnaire.

Disregarding issues of conventional morality, Pialat depicts a girl who explores her sexuality against the setting of a dysfunctional family that's also violent and incestuous. Refusing to judge his characters, Pialat goes for detailed portrayals of relationships. There's a late-night conversation scene that may be the most intimate and poignant father-daughter in movies (Pialat cast himself as the father).

"A Nos Amours" won the Cesar (French Oscar) for Best Picture and put Bonnaire at the forefront of young French actress. A year later, Agnes Varda would cast her in Vagabond, an intense depiction of a homeless girl, for which she won the Cesar for Best Actress (See my review).

Credits

Directed by Pialat.
Co-written by Arlette Langmann and Pialat.
Music by Henry Purcell.
Cinematography: Jacques Loiseleux.